In 1996, with generous funding support from the Royal Bank of Canada and Ontario Hydro, the Royal Bank Visiting Chair on Women and Work was established to support research on women and work.

CREWW has enjoyed three visiting chairs: Elisabetta Bigsby, then Vice President, Residential Mortgages, Royal Bank of Canada, followed by Peter Harder, then Secretary of Treasury Board of Canada, and Carol Stephenson, then President and CEO, Lucent Technologies. These distinguished chair holders undertook fundamental research on women in management in many of Canada’s foremost organizations.

In March 2013, the Royal Bank of Canada Foundation announced renewed funding of CREWW with a $1 Million grant over ten years. This funding is providing opportunities for research on women and work on five major themes: Gender & Careers, Diversity & Inclusion, Gender & Migration, Gender & Entrepreneurship and Work-life balance. New initiatives sponsored by the RBC donation will be announced in 2019.

In May 2017, CREWW merged with Carleton department, the Centre for Women in Politics and Public Leadership (CWPPL) to ensure long-term sustainability of both department’s valuable research.

In addition to the above initiatives, many research projects and consulting engagements on women and work have been undertaken by the faculty members affiliated with CREWW.